Deepin 2014 is the latest version of Deepin, a Linux desktop that’s based on Ubuntu Desktop. Deepin 2014 is actually based on Ubuntu 14.04. It was released yesterday.

Deepin has always been on my list of the best desktop distributions, and Deepin 2014 just vaulted it to the top-2 of that list. The aim of this post is to show you why that happened and why I highly recommend that you should take Deepin 2014 out for a spin. I guarantee that you will like practically all it brings to the table.

So without further ado, here are four reasons to switch to Deepin 2014.

1. Deepin Desktop Environment: Deepin 2014 comes with Deepin Desktop Environment 2.0, a custom desktop environment built with HTML5. As far a desktop environments go, it takes awesome to another level. It is super fast and super responsive and very resource friendly. GNOME 3 devs might want to take a good look at DDE 2.0

Deepin 2014 desktop showing the dock

Deepin 2014 desktop context menu

Three of the four corners in Deepin 2014 are active Hot Corners.

Deepin 2014 desktop comes with four workspaces, which you can access using hotkeys

Deepin 2014 app launcher comes with a category menu

Another screenshot of the launcher showing the Favorites apps

2. A Control Center that rocks: DDE 2.0 features a control center that slides in from the right-edge of the desktop and stays there until you click on the desktop or any item on the desktop. It marks the end of control centers or system settings that open in a window.

Deepin 2014 Control Center slides out from the right-edge of the desktop. It’s simply the best.

All the shortcuts are available from the Deepin 2014 Control Center

Setting any feature is actually fun.

3. Deepin Store: Deepin Store is a renamed Deepin Software Center and it’s still the best graphical package manager in the business. Like DDE 2.0 itself, it’s fast and very responsive.

4. Awesome Apps: We all know that from the end-user perspective, (desktop) computing is all about apps. Not just apps, but awesome apps. Apps that make your computing experience fun. Aside from the usual applications that you’ll find on any Free Software OS, Deepin’s developers threw in a few custom apps that I’m sure you’ll love.

There’s Deepin Game(s). Access and play popular desktop games from one central application.

Deepin Music. Puts Amarok to shame.

Deepin Movie. Just a good as the others

And then there’s Deepin Terminal. All it needs to be super, duper awesome is the auto-complete feature of Final Term.

5. It’s Free Software: Like practically all Linux distributions, Deepin (2014) is free. It’s free to download and free to share with your friends and neighbors. You may download an installation image from here. If you intend to install it under VirtualBox, check out this forum post.

I’ll be the first to criticize something if it sucks. Deepin 2014 is not in the “it sucks” category. There are some shortcomings, but for the most part, it works beautifully on my system, on real hardware and in a virtual environment.